David Lammy: On 12 May 2003 my noble Friend, Baroness Scotland of Asthal, the then parliamentary secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, announced that John Halliday CB had submitted the report of his independent review of the Law Commission on 31 March 2003. She added that the Lord Chancellor had welcomed the thrust of the recommendations and asked the Ministerial Committee on the Law Commission, which is currently chaired by me, to oversee the action taken on the report.
	The Ministerial Committee subsequently authorised the setting up of an interdepartmental project board to manage the implementation of the recommendations. This board has now completed its task and been dissolved.
	In all, of the 42 recommendations made, 39 have now been dealt with; two are for the future; and one is being taken forward separately.
	Major themes of the 39 recommendations included:
	more effective communication between the Law Commission, Government Departments and other stakeholders. As a result a vision and guidance' document, that sets out how the Law Commission and Government Departments will work together, has been published.
	ensuring that the Law Commission's programmes of law reform are based on the best possible assessment of needs, priorities and resources. Consequently, the Law Commission undertook a wide consultation when preparing its ninth programme, which has been published today, 22 March 2005.
	the development of more effective programme and project management at the Law Commission. As a result, the Law Commission has established a new electronic programme management system that will come into operation at the start of the ninth programme on 1 April 2005.
	improving the processes for deciding on and implementing Law Commission recommendations. As a result, time limits have been set by the Ministerial Committee on the Law Commission within which Government Departments are required to respond to commission reports.
	Recommendation 30, aimed at identifying special parliamentary procedures to facilitate scrutiny of Law Commission Bills, is being taken forward separately by the Department for Constitutional Affairs.
	The vision and guidance and the paper setting out the quinquennial review recommendations and how the Government have responded to them have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses and will shortly be available on the website of the Department for Constitutional Affairs at: www.dca.gov.uk

Keith Hill: In July 2002 My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister announced that he would be making an additional £350 million available to local authorities over the period 2003–06 to improve the delivery of planning services. Since then, we have announced that the Planning Delivery Grant (PDG) will continue, with a further £255 million being made available in the period to 2008. We have now decided the basis on which we will distribute the majority of the Planning Delivery Grant of £170 million in 2005–06 and will be informing recipients of their allocations.
	The grant is performance related. Our aim is to enhance the resourcing of the planning system in a way that drives performance improvement and ensures effective delivery of our objectives for sustainable communities. It is specifically targeted towards meeting the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's public service agreements (PSA) 5 and 6. PSA 5 aims to achieve a better balance between housing availability and demand. PSA 6 requires all authorities to have local development frameworks in place (in accordance with agreed local development schemes) and to meet the best value development control targets by the end of 2006–07.
	I can confirm today the amount of grant to be distributed to authorities in 2005–06 is £162.12 million. It will be paid to local planning authorities at a district and county level, national parks, regional planning bodies, the Broads Authority and the Greater London authority. A small amount of the grant, £4.73 million, will be top-sliced to support a number of national initiatives directly related to improving local authority planning performance. A smaller amount, £3 million, will be allocated to the Planning Inspectorate for their work on local development plan preparation.
	Local authorities are rewarded for both improvement towards and achievement of best value development control targets in the period October 2003 to September 2004. Grant allocations are enhanced for local authorities within the high housing demand and growth areas as identified in the Communities Plan in proportion to their contribution towards delivering net additions to the housing stock. Pathfinder authorities receive an allocation of £160,000 in recognition of the low demand for housing in their sub-regions. Local authorities are also awarded £5,000 for each enterprise area within their boundary, up to a maximum of £100,000 for any single authority. Local authorities will be paid by determination under Section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003, copies of which will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses, along with a detailed spreadsheet showing the breakdown of the allocations for individual authorities.
	For the first time, local planning authorities will receive payments in recognition of their online planning provision. The "e-planning" allocations will range from £20,658.68 to £100,000 to all authorities satisfying a minimum of 10 out of 21 e-planning criteria, with the highest awards going to those who achieve all 21. Also for the first time, specific allocations will be made for performance on "county matters" applications in relation to minerals and waste, enabling county councils and those other authorities who deal with such applications to receive PDG.
	An element of the grant that rewards authorities for submitting a Local Development Scheme (LDS) to Government offices will follow later this year but cannot be included with this allocation as the deadline for LDS submission, 28 March 2005, has not yet passed.
	In the first year of the Planning Delivery Grant (2003–04) grant was paid without condition. In 2004–05 two conditions were imposed on PDG payments. This year, these conditions will remain, to ensure that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has the power to act appropriately to partly withhold payment or recover part or all of grant paid where there are concerns over the accuracy or proven inaccuracies in the information on which allocations were made. I may consider withholding up to 10 per cent. of the grant allocated to authorities whose Best Value Performance Indicator 109 (BVPI 109) has been qualified by the auditor until we have established to our satisfaction the reason for the qualification and the reliability of the data on which grant was allocated. Following this I may seek to recover some or all of the monies paid to those authorities.
	The second condition relates to performance on appeals, and this year it has been strengthened. Where an authority's performance on appeal is 40 per cent. worse than the national average (33.81 per cent. of appeals upheld against the authority), 10 per cent. of their development control allocation will be abated. Where this performance is 50 per cent. worse than the average, this abatement will increase to 20 per cent. of the development control allocation. This condition underlines the continuing importance we place on quality in decision making.
	Grant allocations are not ring-fenced and authorities have complete discretion in the way they spend this money, although this year, 25 per cent. of the total grant paid to any individual authority will be limited to capital spending. The remaining 75 per cent. can be spent by the local authority on resource or capital budgets.
	Regional Planning Bodies receive grant to support their work preparing regional spatial strategies and in recognition of the additional work which the strengthened regional planning function involves. In 2005–06 this totals just under £7 million. The Greater London authority (GLA) receives grant in recognition of its plan making responsibilities. The award is based on the GLA's performance against its business plan, and is given in recognition of work in bringing forward alteration of the waste plan, the housing capacity study, and progress against the annual monitoring report.
	Decisions have yet to be taken on the basis of the grant for 2006–07. However, the requirement to meet PSA 5 and 6 means that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister will continue to link grant awards to improved planning performance so as to incentivise authorities to reach and exceed the development control handling targets while maintaining high decision quality, incentivise delivery of housing in areas of high housing demand and provide greater e-planning provision. Authorities should be aware that they will need to continue to secure improvement in these areas to receive grant in future years. We will monitor performance in all aspects of Planning Delivery
	Grant in order to inform future decisions on this. We will consult on full proposals for allocations before any final decisions are taken. The announcement of the grant for 2006–07 will be brought forward to later in 2005, following the consultation process. This is in line with other announcements of grant, and will help to increase certainty in budget setting processes.
	A table showing the amounts payable will be made available in the Libraries of both Houses. This sets out the details of each recipient's grant.
	Planning Fees
	Planning fees will be increased on 1 April 2005, to enable authorities to move closer to recovery of costs on planning applications. The increases were consulted on in a paper I published on 15 December 2004, Official Report, columns 135–37WS. They will average 39 per cent. and raise an estimated £68 million in additional revenue, will be spread proportionately to the types of applications. The fees for a householder extension will rise from £110 to £135, whilst the maximum fee for a major development will rise from £11,000 to £50,000.
	Fee increases are part of the package of resources, along with Planning Delivery Grant, that are designed to improve the quality of planning services and support the changes which the government is introducing as part of its reform of the planning system. For some time, it has been the case that the costs of handling planning applications have been significantly higher than the fees associated with them. These increases address the imbalance and provide authorities with a level of resources which we expect to see leading to improvements in the quality of services.

Nick Raynsford: Today we are making a number of announcements relating to local government performance and the improvement of local services. We are publishing the fourth in a series of discussion documents taking forward the debate on the future of local government that we began last July with the publication of "The future of local government: Developing a 10 year vision".
	"Securing better outcomes: Developing a new performance framework" is intended to stimulate debate around the key principles that the Government consider should make up a new performance framework to secure more effective and efficient delivery of local services. The document is jointly published with Treasury and, building on the devolving decision-making review last year, sets out a broad framework for developing a more devolved approach to delivery of local services, including increased personalisation of services. It emphasises:
	opportunities for users and residents to influence local priorities and the design and delivery of services—including through more choice and personalisation,
	a reduction in bureaucracy—through a more coherent approach to managing performance, with clear national priorities, but with local government having the freedom to take responsibility for securing outcomes that meet the needs of their citizens and for improving their own performance in the way that the best councils are doing
	more flexibility to enable faster and better tailored responses to local circumstances—building on the experience of local area agreements
	the potential for developing an increasingly area based approach between councils and their partners—with greater focus on accountability between local partners in achieving common outcomes for the area
	the importance of strategic, integrated relationship management through Government Offices to tailor negotiations, co-ordinate engagement and support, and challenge and respond to significant under-performance
	the need for better and more transparent information to underpin any effective performance system.
	The discussion paper also expands on the Chancellor's Budget announcement about a rationalised inspection landscape, including the creation of a single local services inspectorate by 2008. This inspectorate will bring together the functions of the Audit Commission and the benefit fraud inspectorate in relation to inspection of English local authorities. It will also have an important role as a gatekeeper and co-ordinator for all inspection of local authorities. The paper also looks at how inspection could be refocused in the longer term.
	Copies of the document have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses and are available on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's website at: www.odpm.gov.uk/localvision. I would urge those with an interest in local government to let us know their views on the issues discussed in this and the other discussion documents we have published.
	The Government's aim is to give people the powers and resources to have a greater influence over the key decisions which affect their community. The new local area agreements, which were the subject of the first local:vision discussion document, are one example of how we are enabling local authorities to work in partnership with other organisations in the public, private and voluntary sectors to target resources on local priorities.
	The first 20 local area agreements (LAAs) will be signed today marking the successful completion of the negotiations on these pilots. The full, long-term agreements will be in place from 1 April 2005, enabling some £500 million of central government funding to be pooled or aligned locally to achieve better outcomes. The signing of these first LAAs means they can now be translated into better delivery of local public services, LAAs will simplify funding streams and help to join up public services. They will also enable local areas to have more freedom to work in innovative ways to benefit their communities.
	As well as celebrating the success of those involved in the first round of LAAs today we are also laying out future developments for LAAs. This includes publishing the application criteria for a further 40 LAAs to be in place by April 2006. As with the first phase of pilot LAAs, the aim will be to ensure that there is a good regional spread of areas, a mix of single tier authorities and counties and linkages with other pilot initiatives in the next phase. Areas wishing to be in the next phase will have until mid-May to express an interest and areas selected will be announced in June.
	It will also be confirmed later today that responsibility for local public service agreement (LPSA) negotiations will be transferred from departmental teams to the Government Offices, also responsible for overseeing the negotiations for LAAs. LPSAs cover additional service targets agreed between central and local government, with the incentive of additional grant rewards if these targets are met. The second generation of LPSAs are increasingly focused on local priorities and are more rigorously outcome-based. Aligning LAAs and LPSAs will help make these initiatives mutually reinforcing, and maximise the potential benefits they offer.
	Today's signing ceremony, will also highlight the new LAA fourth block, which will focus on economic development. Where LAAs are in place the new Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI) will be channelled through this fourth block, as proposed in last week's budget. LAAs will allow local authorities to pool this fund and other economic and enterprise funding streams in one place and to use them in a flexible way.
	I am also pleased to announce that as a result of the first round of the LPSA scheme fifteen local authorities will receive reward grants totalling £93 million over the next two years. The councils, from across the country, have earned the reward grants for improving performance across a range of services to levels above those previously agreed.
	We have also launched a leaflet today bringing local government up to date with the joint Local Government Association Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Capacity Building Programme. The Capacity Building Programme aims to support improvement in local government, by enhancing and developing councils' confidence, leadership, and skills to drive forward improvement as well as developing their capacity to learn, innovate and share knowledge and expertise about what works and how. The leaflet provides details of who is eligible to participate and how the programme can be accessed as well as encouraging local authorities to form improvement partnerships.
	Improvement partnerships are voluntary partnerships formed when a group of authorities and or fire and rescue authorities come together to improve their internal capacity either at regional or sub-regional level. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister will make £57 million available from the capacity building programme over the next three years to support these improvement partnerships.
	Several regions have work underway to develop improvement partnerships, the furthest advanced of which is the North West Improvement Network (NWIN). We will provide NTWTN with £7.9 million over the next three years to support it in its work of creating a network of local authorities and other partners in the region committed to mutual improvement.
	These announcements show the Government's continuing commitment to working with local government to improve the outcomes for all our citizens, by allowing local authorities and their local partners more flexibility to be able to make the decisions about the issues that affect their areas.

Prison Contestability

Nigel Griffiths: I am pleased to announce that today, with Edwina Hart AM, the Welsh Assembly Government Minister for Social Justice and Regeneration, I have launched a joint consultation on "Improving Payment Practices in the Construction Industry".
	The consultation proposes a number of amendments to part 2 of the Housing Grants Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 and the Scheme for Construction Contracts (England and Wales) Regulations 1998.
	The proposals are aimed at improving the ability of parties to a construction contract to:
	reach agreement on what should be paid and when given the work done under the contract or, where they cannot agree, to make an informed referral to, or response at, adjudication;
	manage cash flow and enable completion of work on the project in the event of problems such as defaulted payments, disputes or insolvencies elsewhere in the supply chain; and,
	refer disputes to adjudication without disincentives such as avoidance, frustration or unnecessary challenge.
	Fair payment practice is something everyone agrees with and a fair payment culture underpins any progressive and modern industry.
	This consultation considers a number of issues around the key principles of improving the ability of people in the construction industry manage cash flow on construction projects and to bring about effective delivery, on time and to budget. It provides the opportunity for the whole industry and its clients to come together around a shared set of proposals.
	The consultation considers issues and proposals identified during Sir Michael Latham's initial review of the Construction Act, published in September 2004. Following the announcement of the review in the Budget in March 2004, I appointed Sir Michael to produce his report with input from the construction industry representative bodies and other stakeholders. Sir Michael's report raised some key issues. While the continued support of the construction industry representative bodies is vital to the effectiveness of this consultation process, we also hope to build a wider and deeper consensus on how to improve the construction contracts legislation and payment practices in the construction industry.
	We have come a long way since the announcement of the review in the 2004 Budget and I hope this consultation process can take the dialogue within the industry further forward over the coming months.
	The consultation considers 14 key proposals for amending part 2 of the Housing Grants Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 and the Scheme for Construction Contracts (England and Wales) Regulations 1998. These are:
	Payment framework
	Defining the content of an adequate payment mechanism in Section 110(1) of the Construction Act
	Removing the requirement to serve a Section 110(2) notice in the Construction Act
	Providing an application for payment in the legislation
	Redefining the content of withholding notices under Section 111
	Restricting the use of pay-when-certified clauses
	Other payment proposals
	Introducing a right to reimbursement for the costs of suspension and remobilisation and providing additional time for remobilisation under Section 112 of the Construction Act
	Making contractual provisions on cross contract set-off ineffective
	Making "pay-when-paid" clauses ineffective in cases of "upstream" insolvency proceedings
	Allowing stage payments under the scheme for construction contracts to be made for materials in advance of their arrival on site
	Adjudication proposals
	Preventing the use of trustee stakeholder accounts to suspend an adjudicator's award pending litigation other than when the recipient is involved in insolvency proceedings.
	Providing the adjudicator with the power to rule on certain aspects of his own jurisdiction and providing a right to payment in cases where the adjudicator stands down due to lack of jurisdiction.
	Providing the adjudicator with the right to overturn "final and conclusive" decisions where these are of substance to interim payments only
	Extending the adjudicator's immunity under the Construction Act to claims by third parties
	Applying provisions on adjudicator independence from the scheme for construction contracts to all adjudications in section 108 of the Construction Act
	The consultation period will close 21 June 2005.